Leiterfluid's Movie Reviews

HD-DVD is Dead, Long Live HD-DVD!

2008-07-30T16:56:00.001-07:00

So, if you've looked at my DVD Collection lately, you may have noticed that I now have a couple HD-DVD discs that I recently acquired. Before I become known as The King of Dead Formats (yes, I own a LaserDisc player), I should explain.

My brother-in-law got the Xbox 360 player soon after it became available, and he was pretty happy with it. However, after Toshiba announced it was dropping the HD-DVD format (due in large part to Sony essentially buying off the remaining studios), the HD-DVD player essentially became a brick (or a decent upscaling DVD player).

He tried once before to give it to me, give it away, mind you, and I refused, because I had no need for it. When he couldn't sell it at a garage sale, I decided to take it off his hands.

So I felt it wasn't worth having unless I had a (small) handful of movies worth watching. So you'll notice that I now have the following HD-DVD titles:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Top Gun
Army of Darkness (of course)
Rattle & Hum (this is on order, I don't have it as of yet)

I'm thinking about buying a PS3 later this year, so maybe I'll start buying Blu-Ray discs eventually. But we'll see.

Barry from EastEnders

2008-07-28T22:25:00.001-07:00

So, my wife and I finished watching the series Extras, the follow-up comedy by the creators of The Office (they created the original U.K. version, and are executive producers on the U.S. version). If you liked The Office, you will absolutely cringe at Extras. It's Ricky Gervais at his best, which is him being an obtusely horrible person (as opposed to his friends in the show, who are horribly obtuse).

Once again HBO fails to disappoint me by providing excellent programming. It's too bad the season (and series) runs are so short. Although I've recently picked up Carnivale Seasons 1 and 2, and From the Earth to the Moon. So those should be fun to watch.

With the new X-Files movie out, the wife and I are going to have to play catch-up on the series. We stopped watching midway through Season 8, I believe. I need to write a primer for her to keep up with all the plot elements so we can pick up where we left off.

Finally, I just heard from my friend Pat that Ray Stevenson, the actor who played Titus Pullo in Rome will be the next actor to play The Punisher in the new movie Punisher: War Zone.

I don't know what to say about that.

(I'm expecting a big order this week, so I'll have another post soon)

The 10 Worst Films In My DVD Collection (Part 2)

2008-07-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

So, I'm always asked "What's your favorite movie," or "What are your top 10 desert island CDs" or "Do I have to get a restraining order?!"

The first two are always difficult to answer, because it's hard for me to pin down absolute favorites. It's easy, however, to recognize absolute crap, and that's what this post is about.

If you've known me for more than a month, you know that I have an extensive DVD collection, and that I often buy movies without actually having seen them first. However, for some reason, I can't bring myself to part with even the worst of the worst, taking a perverse sense of pride in knowing that these films are so bad, that I wouldn't even give them away for fear of retribution.

Here are the 10 Worst films I own, in descending order, finishing the list with 5 through 1:

5. 8mm

This is one of the first DVDs I ever bought, and I believe it might be the first movie I bought without ever having seen it. You would have thought that I'd learned my lesson, but even today I still make that same mistake over and over (see #3 on this very list). In any event, I usually like Nicolas Cage, but just cannot like this movie. Again, this is one of those movies where the elements of a film I usually like are there, but they're just not put together in the right way in this film. I've also developed a disdain for Joel Schumacher, who also directed The Lost Boys, and was responsible for Batman and Robin and Batman Forever, you know the movies with the bat nipples on the suits (as well as an inordinate amount of neon used throughout the film. I swore I would never watch another Schumacher film again, but then I saw...

4. The Number 23

I blame my wife, Target, and and my friend Dave from high school for me buying this movie. I knew better. I told myself "It's a Joel Schumacher film. Remember what happened with 8MM? Go buy a Renny Harlin movie if you want a bad movie. At least it will have Geena Davis, or a chick that looks suspiciously like Geena Davis, and how can you go wrong with that?" But no, I was curious, because my best friend in Junior High had some weird obsession with the number 23. Target had the movie for only $14, so even if it was bad, it had to be at least worth $14, right? But the clincher was my wife, who really wanted to see it (which she'll now vehemently deny, I'm sure). So once again Joel Schumacher has directed a travesty, and neither Jim Carrey nor Virginia Madsen can save this trainwreck of a movie that doesn't make one damned bit of sense. I imagine whomever wrote this uses a technique that my friend Jeff likes to call "Word Salad," where you just take a bunch of words, and mix them up, and assume what you'll produce is consumable. I'm on to you Schumacher. Never again.

3. The Punisher (2004)

Embarrassingly, this movie is the inspiration for this list. I just watched it last night. This is another one of those situations where I knew better, but I let my wife influence me. To be fair, it's not really her fault. When this movie came out in theatres, she expressed a passing interest in seeing, but I strongly suspect she was trying to placate me, thinking I would be interested in seeing it. However, I told her that if she wanted to see it, she would have to watch the 1989 version of The Punisher featuring Dolph "I Must Break You" Lundgren. Strangely, she never mentioned an interest in this film again. I was at Best Buy last week, and I was going through all the movies that were on sale, and I came across this one for $10. I was mildly interested in seeing it, knowing that it couldn't be anywhere near as bad as the first Punisher movie. Plus, it had a fairly extensive cast with Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Will Patton, Rebecca Romijn(-Stamos at that time), Roy Scheider, and the delectable Laura Herring. Early on in the movie, the wife started poking fun at it, and I started to get annoyed by it, wanting to give the movie a fair chance, but at some point, I just relented, and decided she was right to make fun of it. I don't know that there was anything likeable about this movie.

One other thing I'd like to note. The original Punisher is not on this list. As bad as it was, it deserves another viewing, but it may make an "honorable mention."

2. American Psycho 2

American Psycho was based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. I had a number of friends who read it in high school, and I read it shortly afterwards. I didn't think a movie could do it justice. But Christian Bale was so perfect as Patrick Bateman, a homicidal perfectionist whose love for Huey Lewis is unsurpassed. American Psycho is one of my favorite movies, and was just so well done. Then came the "sequel." American Psycho 2 stars Mila Kunis (That 70's Show, Family Guy) and William effing Shatner. That's right. Captain Kirk. TJ Hooker. I gave this one a fair shot, but it had the reputation of the first one to live up to. This one doesn't even deserve to be associated with American Psycho. It was just so ridiculously bad, and so poorly executed, I'm ashamed to admit I own this.

1. Sideways

Here we have the recipe for the perfect comedy movie. We start with Paul Giamatti, who was hilarious as PigVomit in Howard Stern's Private Parts, Thomas Haden Church, who played Lowell on Wings (and later would play The Sandman in Spider-Man 3), the always beautiful Virginia Madsen (although her filmography has its ups and downs), and some chick named Sandra Oh, whom I'd never heard of before.

It was directed by Alexander Payne, who is notorious for making films in his hometown (and mine) Omaha. Most memorable are Election and About Schmidt.

The quotes on the DVD cover call it:

"The Best Comedy of the Year"
"By Far The Year's Best American Movie"
"A Comedy Masterpiece"

I call it

"Crapola!"
"Two Hours of My Life I'll Never Get Back!"
"An Abomination Unto The Lord"

This craptacular crapfest was about a bunch of whiny thirty(plus)somethings who do nothing but drink wine and engage in painfully obviously unfulfilling relationships. Everyone in this movie is a depressing sad sack, and it just encouraged a bunch of people who know nothing about wine or healthy relationships to try and become experts in both. I'm not a wine drinker myself, but I have a lot of friends who are, and not a single one of them is a superficial bastard who will spend an entire evening talking about the fucking wine. Being able to recite something you read in a wine guide does not make you a fucking wine expert. I am less inclined to drink wine after watching this movie.

Do not watch this movie. Do not buy this movie. Don't even buy grapes right now.

The 10 Worst Films in My DVD Collection (Part 1)

2008-07-19T13:22:00.001-07:00

So, I'm always asked "What's your favorite movie," or "What are your top 10 desert island CDs" or "Do I have to get a restraining order?!"

The first two are always difficult to answer, because it's hard for me to pin down absolute favorites. It's easy, however, to recognize absolute crap, and that's what this post is about.

So here are the 10 Worst films I own, in descending order, beginning with 10 through 6:

10. Date Movie

I am officially over the whole "Spoof Movie" phenomenon thanks to this movie. It all began with Scary Movie, which was a fun way to parody a lot of the stereotypes in horror films, poking fun at specific films (namely the Scream series, which I have never seen). The sequels to Scary Movie became just as formulaic as the movies they were starting to make fun of. Unfortunately, the trend has continued with films like Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Superhero Movie. Parody, if done well, can be extremely entertaining. This, however, resorted to too much toilet humor to be watchable.

9. Smokin' Aces

There's a truck near my neighborhood that's painted camouflage, and has the word "S-s-s-smokin'" painted on the tailgate. It's incredibly white trashy, and yet it's exponentially more entertaining than Smokin' Aces. I like movies that have guns, violence, and Jeremy Piven. So one would think that this would be a winning combination. However, this one misses on so many levels, it's not even funny. Apparently, someone decided that it would be a good idea to remake It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but instead of a treasure, everyone was trying to assassinate Jeremy Piven. They should have gone after the writer, director, and casting director for this movie.

8. Hostel

This movie should be called "Hostile" because that's how I feel after having seen it. Now, I'm a big fan of horror films. I remember the chest-burster scene from Alien when I was just a kid, and my parents could find a sitter, so they made us "sleep" in the back of the station wagon while they watched a movie at the drive-in. I remember seeing A Nightmare on Elm St. at a young age, and just being transfixed (and scared to death) by it. You might say I'm somewhat of a horror film connoisseur. Hostel, however, is less of a horror film, and more of a giant disappointing waste of celluloid. I don't know if Hostel introduced this trend, or it just highlighted something I hadn't noticed before, but this movie was the first film that employed an incredibly bad formula of "filling the first half of the movie with gratuitous T&A, and the second half with gratuitous gore." I don't know about you, but I prefer my horror and gore to be consistent throughout a movie, or at least if it's going to build up to something, don't bore me in the first half of the movie. What made this movie incredibly offensive is that I liked the concept, it just failed miserably in execution.

7. Reign of Fire

Reign of Crap is more like it (OK, that was a cheap shot, but if you've seen this movie, you know it's deserved). I don't know what I was thinking. Dragons awaken an invade the earth in the near future, causing humanity to retreat into hiding, and Matthew McConaughey comes to save the day. Christian Bale has been in so many good movies, I guess the law of averages requires that he make a stinker every once in a while but... c'mon. McConaughey, of course, gets shirtless (I believe it's part of his standard contract), and the movie just gets pretty ridiculous after a while. Granted, I take responsibility for having bought it (even if I only paid $3.00 for it). Let's just move on.

6. Bug

"From the Director of The Exorcist"

I'm listening....

"Starring Ashley Judd"

Sold.

"and Harry Connick, Jr."

Ummm...

"Based on a play by ..."

Cancelled.

I should have done more research on this film, and learned that it was a stage play that had been (barely) adapted for the screen. There's only seven actors in the whole film, and you only get to see six of them. I expected it to be a lot like the story in Creepshow where a Howard Hughes-esque mysophobic millionaire isolates himself in a clean room, only to have his apartment infested with bugs. Bug, however, plays like a straight-to-Lifetime drama about a woman who's escaped her abusive husband (recently released from prison, of course), and finds her savior in a guy who might not be as wonderful as he seems. I made my wife, her brother, and his wife sit through this drivel, and I think they still hold it against me.

Joey... do you like movies about gladiators?

2008-07-16T20:45:00.001-07:00

Such an innocent question with such an innocuous tone, right? Well, regardless of what you might think of Captain Oveur's intentions, I've found, lately, that I've been buying (and subsequently watching) a lot of movies that take place during the height of the Roman Empire. It all started with Rome.

I've blogged about it before. Rome appeared for two Seasons on HBO, and was incredibly fascinating. Between episodes in the first season, the wife and I watched Spartacus (starring Kirk Douglas). Of course, the events in Spartacus precede the series Rome, but having seen it added an interesting dimension to the show.

I recently received (today in fact) two more films in the same vein. Ben Hur, starring one of the all-time greats Charlton Heston, and Julius Caesar, the 1970 adaptation of William Shakespeare's play (also starring Charlton Heston).

So this is a little embarrassing

2008-06-22T00:36:00.001-07:00

Every few months or so, I need to integrate DVD purchases into "the collection." This means going through the entire collection and realphabetizing everything (and trying to find space on my DVD shelves). However, as I was going through the collection, I noticed two DVDs that for one reason or another weren't properly entered into my DVD Profiler database.

It's a little embarrassing, but for all intent and purposes, I didn't actually "own" An American Haunting or Bubba Ho-Tep, even though I bought both of those when they were released.

The problem has since been resolved, and all is right with the world.

Rome, if you want to

2008-06-21T10:23:00.001-07:00

So, the wife and I finally started watching the first season of Rome. I have to say that so far, I'm really liking it. The wife couldn't help comparing it to Deadwood, another HBO series we really liked; but I think that raised her expectations a little too high.

Still, it's really entertaining to watch, and I've been really getting into the story. It's amazing how much lying, cheating, and backstabbing goes on in the show. It's like watching a 2000 year-old reality show.

First of all...

2008-06-18T13:41:00.001-07:00

I should change the title of this blog, since it's less about reviewing movies, and just about DVDs and movies in general. Although I'm pretty sure no one's reading this blog anyway, so whatever.

Regardless,

I've been buying a few more DVDs lately. A handful have been new releases (Rambo, National Treasure 2), but most of them have been deep discounted. I've (of course) still been buying some deep discounted movies, including a few that were at Amazon.com for $5.00 a pop.

Recently, I watched the remake of The Amityville Horror. I liked the original a lot (with Margot Kidder and James Brolin), and I didn't think I'd want to see the remake (especially since I can't stand Ryan Reynolds, but it was surprisingly good.

I've also completed my Planet of the Apes collection with both the live-action and animated series.

He Was Legend

2008-04-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

I found out late last night while I was updating my website that Charlton Heston passed away at the age of 84. Heston was one of those actors that was so fantastic, and over the top, that you had to love everything it was in. I can't think of a single movie he was in that I didn't like. Although he's been in a lot of movies, the memorable ones from my collection include:

Planet of the Apes (1968)
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
The 10 Commandments
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Soylent Green
The Omega Man
Airport 1975
Hamlet
Tombstone
Planet of the Apes (2001)

I remember about 10 years ago or so, reading the Letters to the Editor section of the Omaha World-Herald, and coming across a letter that was written by Mr. Heston, urging the people of omaha to preserve the Indian Hills Theater, one of the last Cinerama theatres in the country. Unfortunately, said theatre is now a parking lot.

Coincidentally, my friend Jeff and I were just talking about Charleton Heston and Soylent Green on the way back from lunch the other day, and noting that since he announced he had alzheimers, and stepped down from the NRA about five years ago, nobody had heard from him.

He had a good, long career and a long life as well, but I would have liked to have seen him kick some more cinematic ass.

I Am Legend, Hear Me Roar

2008-01-07T21:26:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention that I saw I Am Legend at the new theatre in The Commons At Federal Way (formerly and always SeaTac Mall). I liked it!

I Am Legend is (loosely) based on the book by Richard Matheson. To the best of my knowledge, this is the third film adaptation of this story. The first being The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, and the second (and arguably more well-known) is The Omega Man with Charleton Heston.

In my opinion, The Last Man on Earth is the most faithful adaptation of the book. That's not to belittle either The Omega Man or I Am Legend. Each movie offers a different interpretation of the cause and effects of the "vampirization" of mankind. I think my personal favorite retelling might be The Omega Man, simply because Charleton Heston has always been the ultimate "post-apocalyptic world in crisis" actor.

As an interesting aside, I always thought the premise behind the story would have been an excellent vehicle for Evil Dead 4 (accepting the Director's Cut ending of Army of Darkness as canon).

Now, I should also mention that my experience at I Am Legend further cemented my resolve to not see movies in the theatre. I much prefer waiting for the DVD, and seeing it in the comfort and privacy of my own home.

Plus, I can tell people to shut the hell up if they start talking during the movie.

You know who you are.

A couple of new purchases

2008-01-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

Last week, when we were at Target, we were looking through their budget titles, and came across Donnie Brasco and The Number 23. I've seen bits and pieces of Donnie Brasco on TV, and Bridget thought it would be a good idea for me to pick it up.

The Number 23 piqued our interest when it came out, but it's got one thing really working against it. Joel Schumacher, who happens to be my least favorite director. The only movie I've ever seen by him that had any merit was Falling Down, but outside of that, I can't stand him. I loathe what he did to the Batman franchise, and pretty much everything else he's done is just beyond ridiculous (I actually have never seen A Time to Kill, which may be his only saving grace). So needless to say, I'm not terribly excited about it, but I got it on sale, and am willing to give it a chance. We'll see.

Merry Christmas to ME

2008-01-07T20:06:00.001-08:00

Many Americans are oblivious to the fact that Christmas only begins on December 25th. Christmas technically lasts until January 6th, also known as The Epiphany, or Three Kings' Day. That represents the day that the three kings (or magi) arrived with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the baby Jesus. This holiday is celebrated in Puerto Rico, as well as many other Latin American and European countries. My wife and I also celebrate it as another opportunity to exchange gifts.

So this little lesson introduces the post for my Christmas loot!

I actually didn't get a whole lot of DVDs this year, but the ones I did get were awesome.

My brother-in-law and his wife gave me the first season of Rome. Ever since watching the entire Deadwood series (also introduced to us by Jon and his wife), I've become a lot more interested in some of the other HBO produced series (eschewing the obvious 'Sopranos' series).

My parents gave me the Twin Peaks: Definitive Gold Box Edition box set, which includes the complete 1st and 2nd seasons, as well as the previously unavailable (in the U.S.) pilot.

For Three Kings' Day (which my wife and I celebrated early because of an unexpected out-of-town trip we had to take), I got The Bourne Ultimatum.

Of course, I haven't had a chance to watch any of these yet, but if anyone reads this, I'll keep you updated.

Technically, I'm not supposed to buy DVDs in December

2008-01-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

Because Christmas is around the corner. However, many of the DVDs I wanted wouldn't be out until well after my family buys my gifts. My wife and I watched the Simpsons soon after getting it, and I have to say... It was funnier than the last five seasons have been. I know I'm getting off-topic a bit, but the Simpsons was funniest when Conan O'Brian and his successor David X. Cohen were the head writers for the show. The movie was nowhere near as funny as some of those episodes, but it was pretty damn good.

I was most excited about Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. I had heard good things, and I was curious to see his take on the story. I didn't expect to see quite so many recognizable (although rarely leading) actors such as Brad Dourif, William Forsythe, Sid Haig, Danny Trejo, Clint Howard, and Udo Kier to name a few. I also enjoyed the direction of the story, focusing more on who Michael Myers was, rather than having him be a (relatively) ambiguous killer. It was probably one of the best horror films I've seen in a while.

Superbad was SuperAwesome.
Not a movie for everyone, but it was pretty freaking hilarious.

November Reigns

2008-01-02T22:28:00.000-08:00

November was also a good month for me. If you read my prior post, you know that I got Shrek and Ratatouille. Neither were phenomenal. Ratatouille was pretty funny. Shrek was a little disappointing, though. The first one was fantastic because it had a lot to offer insofar as telling a completely new "fairy tale." The second one was a decent follow-up, but the third didn't really offer anything new. The story seemed forced, and the characters are kinda wearing thin on me.

Live Free or Die Hard was surprisingly good. You can't help but want to make "I'm a Mac" jokes throughout the whole thing.

The highlight of the month was the new Futurama DVD. Since it's been five years since Futurama was cancelled, and this was like an oasis in the desert. For the first time in a long time, I watched every single special feature on that DVD, although I'm waiting to watch it with the commentary track until I make it through the whole series with commentary.

Next update... December!

Man, I'm lazy

2008-01-02T22:06:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've posted some updates, so here's the latest.

October Purchases:

Death Proof
Planet Terror
Transformers
White Noise
Spider-Man 3

November Purchases:

Ratatouille
Shrek the Third
Live Free or Die Hard
Futurama: Bender's Big Score

December Purchases:

Pirates of the Carribean 3
Superbad
Halloween (2007 Remake)
The Simpsons Movie

Soon after the last update, I got both of the Grindhouse films from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, Death Proof and Planet Terror, respectively. I personally liked Planet Terror more, because it's exactly what I expect from that type of film. Death Proof was good, mind you, just not as action-packed.

I got Transformers at the same time. Now, I had mixed feelings about it, because I knew there was no way it could live up to my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised. I grew up with Transformers toys, and I used to love the animated series. I think that Michael Bay actually did a fairly good job (although the Chevy product placement was a little annoying). In fact, it seems like it was more faithful than the most recent animated series I caught on cartoon network last week.

White Noise was an impulse purchase. I bought it used at a GameStop in downtown Portland. And Spider-Man 3... Well, it was Spider-Man 3.

New Purchases, And They've Already Been Watched

2007-10-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

If my memory is correct, this isn't the first time this is happened in recent months, but it still amazes me when I can watch movies the same weekend I buy them. So here's the story. For some reason, I thought that Planet Terror, the second movie from the Grindhouse Double Feature came out last week. Well, not only was I wrong, but I wasted a good half hour waiting for someone at "The Beast" to try and look that up (which I ended up finding out by searching Amazon on my phone).

I wasn't about to walk out of there empty handed, so I ended up picking up 1408 and 28 Weeks Later. Both were pretty good. I barely remembered the story 1408 was based on, but it was pretty good. I watched the Extended Edition Director's Cut with the Alternate Ending. Now since I'd never seen the theatrical version, so I watched that ending later in the week (I think I liked the alternate ending better, but neither one really wowed me).

28 Weeks Later was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because quite frankly, it's a sequel; and it wasn't written or directed by the same folks. It wasn't as frenetic as I would have expected, and the young kid, who is a key character in the film, was annoying as all get out. There are a lot of things little things in the movie that don't make sense, or just seem plain stupid, but I don't watch films like this to think.

My boss also let me borrow The Mothman Prophecies. He kept talking about it like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was... alright. This is another one of those movies where you have to get past the innacuracies. Such as Richard Gere being married to Debra Messing. Or Debra Messing having breasts (Yeah, nice body double in the shower scene during the opening credits).

Today is new DVD Tuesday, and I ordered Transformers, Death Proof and Planet Terror. It's going to be a Grindhouse double-feature at my house this weekend!

Comic Books, Movies, Video Games, Animated Series...

2007-09-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

Is there anything Spawn can't do?

Well, the movie left a lot to be desired.

And I believe the only sucessful appearance of Spawn in a Video Game That Doesn't Suck was Soul Calibur II.

But the animated series...

10 years after it premiered, Spawn: The Animated Series is available as a new, 10th Anniversary Edition, with all three seasons in one set. This isn't the first time all three seasons have been available, but when this set was released, I finally decided to pick it up.

I had two problems with Spawn: The Animated Series. The first was that I couldn't stop watching. I stayed up late a few nights just to watch an episode only to force myself to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. The second, and this seems to be an ongoing problem for many HBO series, it ended without ending.

Granted, the original Spawn comic book is still being produced; so it would be hard to come to a satisfactory conclusion for the series; but 18 episodes (six per season) is hardly sufficient to tell the story the way it deserves to be told.

I recently started buying the trade paperback collections of the comic series, and it's really interesting to see the source material for such a well-done animated series, and poorly executed movie. I'm digging the comics, althought it's making me want to read all the auxiliary material, such as the Violator, Angela, and Youngblood Series.

Well, it looks like eBay is an option. ;)

Did PAYBACK Give Up?!

2007-09-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

Speaking of different plots...
I recently watched Payback: Straight Up -The Director's Cut. I had no idea that the director's cut was so different from the theatrical release. Kris Kristofferson wasn't in the director's cut at all, in fact, his character was played, well, voiced really, by Sally Kellerman, who never makes an appearance in the film. The whole thing about Bronson's son getting kidnapped wasn't in the director's cut at all.

It's really hard for me to say which cut I liked better. I really liked the theatrical release, and the director's cut was really well done. It's like comparing apples to oranges, almost. I really recommend watching Payback: Straight Up if you haven't seen it yet.

Latest Purchases

2007-09-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't posted in a while, but I've gotten a few new DVDs in the last month and a half since my last entry. I decided to purchase a few from Amazon.com with their 4 for 3 deal. I ended up getting the following:

Communion
Kentucky Fried Movie
Marathon Man
The Boys from Brazil

Also, since my last posting, I've bought Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters For DVD, which I have to say is just hilarious. If you've never seen the TV show, you probably won't appreciate what makes the movie just so freakin' funny. Although, most people don't find the show funny unless they're on some kind of controlled substance. Me, I don't need drugs to appreciate the absurd.

One of the interesting things about the DVD is that Disc 2 contains a "deleted movie." It's essentially a rough-cut of a slightly different plot for the ATHFCMFFT movie. Some of the scenes were spun-off into a separate episode.

Holy Crap, I Watched Movies The Same Week I Bought Them

2007-08-06T16:06:00.001-07:00

So, yeah. I watched both 300 and Hot Fuzz this weekend, which is a rare event for me.

I hear a lot of people talking about movies that are in their "Netflix Queue." Well, I don't subscribe to Netflix, simply because I have movies that I have purchased years ago that I still haven't had time to watch. I need to create my own LeiterFlix Queue list. When I do, I'll post it here.

Also, a couple more purchases last week. I picked up the Godfather box set and Raging Bull.

Into the Leiterflix Queue they go.

New Purchases 7/31/2007

2007-08-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

So I went to Best Buy, and got 300 and Hot Fuzz.

I also decided to pick up Friday, because it's a damn funny movie, and even though they show it on USA all the damn time, it loses something in the translation to basic cable.

Of course, it features the always-funny John Witherspoon, who also plays the voice of "Granddad 'Bitches' Freeman" on the Boondocks cartoon.

Tuesday New Releases

2007-07-31T08:02:00.000-07:00

A couple movies come out on DVD today that I'm looking forward to picking up, 300 and Hot Fuzz. I have to say, ever since that South Park episode, I've been less excited to see 300.

Hot Fuzz should be good for a laugh.

Still haven't watched Ghost Rider.

S-s-s-s-s-mokin!

2007-07-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Ha! I bet you thought this was going to be a review of The Mask. I don't own The Mask, though.

There is a pickup parked in someone's lawn near my neighborhood that's painted camoflauge, and the word "S-s-s-s-s-mokin'" painted on the back. It's so white-trashy it cracks me up.

Anyway, this is actually a review of Smokin' Aces.

I picked this up a while ago, but the wife and I just got around to watching it last weekend. I really didn't know much about it, but I dug the commercials, which summarized the movie as "BLAM! BLAM! EXPLETIVE!" etc.

Well, it wasn't quite as exciting as all that. I had no idea that it had so many well-known or at least easily recognized people in it. I like Jeremy Piven in pretty much everything I've seen him in. You also can't go wrong with Andy Garcia and Ray Liotta, or so you would think. I've never really liked Ryan Reynolds, but he was pretty tolerable up until the end of the movie. My only real expectation for the movie was that it would be non-stop action and violence. It turns out that the movie is a bit slower-paced than that.

Jeremy Piven plays Buddy Israel, a vegas showman who quickly rises ranks in the mafia. To save his own skin, he decides to turn state's evidence, and a price is quickly put on his head bythe ailing kingpin. The high ($1,000,000) bounty attracts all sorts of would-be assassins to take him out, incluing Ben Affleck and Alicia Keys.

Two FBI Agents (Liotta and Reynolds) discover the threat on Israel's life and act to protect him. Things tend to prod slowly along with a few choice scenes here and there; moving towards a gun-totin', glass-shatterin', bullets-flyin' action-packed climax.

All-in-all, I would score the movie 3.5 starts (out of five). It was pretty good, but the action could have been spread out a little better.

Some other notable appearances:

Jason Bateman (creepy as hell, I miss Arrested Development!)
Nestor Carbonell (I spent a good portion of the movie trying to remember where I'd seen him before. My wife remembered him from Suddenly Susan. I then remembered him as Bat Manuel from the Tick live-action series)
Curtis Armstrong (Booger!)
Wayne Newton (playing himself, but if you blink, you'll miss him)

New Blog I'll Never Update

2007-07-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me, know that I have a fairly extensive DVD collection. Since collecting (and watching) DVDs is probably one of my more prolific hobbies, I figured it'd be a good idea if I started a blog to write reviews, or share information about the DVDs I buy.

There probably won't be any rhyme or reason to how or when I post on here, but someone might find it interesting.